Neck warmer

ABSTRACT

A neck warmer is provided with a subset of indicia from a character&#39;s face to provide the appearance of a complete character face when worn by a child. The neck warmer appearance provides the advantage of encouraging children to wear outdoor protection garments such as the neck warmer by creating the appearance of a custom. Accordingly, the warmer of the invention provides a significant advantage in encouraging children, who are usually reluctant to wear such garments, to wear a neck warmer during cold weather.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to environmental protection garments, and moreparticularly, to a children's neck warmer.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Children enjoy dressing up in costumes and pretend that they are variouscharacters. Usually a child would wear a mask and other accessories aspart of the costume. As many parents know, motivating a child to dressup in a costume is not difficult; it is removing the costume that isusually the greater challenge. Hence, children are naturally inclined toaccept dressing up in articles of clothing that are part of a costume.

It is also known that children are susceptible to colds and otherailments when not properly protected from environmental hazards such ascold, wind, and rain. Therefore, children, as well as adults, shouldwear proper garments which protect them from these environmentalhazards. However, it is difficult and frustrating for parents tomotivate a child to wear articles of clothing which provide thisprotection.

SUMMARY

Therefore, in accordance with the invention a garment for protecting thewearer from cold and wind is provided, which resembles a mask of acostume. Particularly, the garment is a neck warmer which depictsfeatures of a character's head, starting just below the eyes.Accordingly, when the child wears the neck warmer over the nose, toproperly protect the neck and face, an appearance of a character's faceis provided by having the child's eyes in place of the character's,thereby completing the features provided on the neck warmer to provide acomplete character face. These and other advantages of the inventionwill become apparent from the description below.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a neck warmer in accordance with one embodiment ofthe present invention; and

FIG. 2 illustrates a neck warmer as worn by a child to provide an animalface costume.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment of a neck warmer 10 in accordance withthe invention, which is intended to depict features of a cat's face. Theneck warmer 10 is generally made of a synthetic material adapted toretain heat while providing a soft interior surface, such as thatprovided by fleece, as is know in the art. The neck warmer is preferablyprovided as an elongated cylindrical shaped sleeve, having an upper rim12 and a lower rim 14. As may be appreciated, the teachings of thepresent invention are applicable to various neck warmer constructions inaddition to the illustrated warmer.

The neck warmer 10 is preferably arranged to have the appearance, whenworn and viewed from the front, of a complete character head. As anexample, the head of an animal may be simulated. To provide thisappearance, feature of an animal, aligned with the longitudinal axis ofthe cylinder, are provided substantially along half of the warmer'scircumference. Preferably, the features are aligned so as to create theillusion that the character's eyes are to be located just above theupper rim 12 of the neck warmer 10. While markings may be drawn, paintedor embroidered onto the surface of the neck warmer, greater realism maybe achievable by the use of simulated noses and ears suitably formed,for example, from fabric or a plastic material.

As illustrated in FIG. 2, when the wearer's eyes 14 are just above thewarmer's upper rim 12, a simulation of a character face is provided. Asmay be appreciated, the appearance of the neck warmer 10 in accordancewith the invention encourages children, who are normally reluctant towear any form of neck protection, to wear the neck warmer. The featuresprovided on the illustrated neck warmer surface include the character'smouth 16, nose 18, tongue 20, and whiskers 22. The neck warmer 10 isthus of practical advantage, as well as being of novel and attractiveappearance.

It will be appreciated that, by using different combinations of eye,nose, mouth and ear designs and colors, neck warmers giving theappearance of a wide variety of different toy or real characters may beproduced. For example, the warmer may be adapted to give the appearanceof a cat, a snowman, a rabbit, a dog, a tiger, or a clown.

Although the present invention was discussed in terms of certainpreferred embodiments, the invention is not limited to such embodiments.A person of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that numerousvariations and combinations of the features set forth above can beutilized without departing from the present invention as set forth inthe claims. Thus, the scope of the invention should not be limited bythe preceding description but should be ascertained by reference toclaims that follow.

1. A neck warmer comprising: an elongated cylindrical sleeve portionhaving an exterior face and an upper rim; said exterior face havingindicia suggesting the appearance of a character, said charactergenerally including eyes and facial features below the eyes, saidindicia comprising said facial features below the eyes, not includingthe eyes, said features are positioned on the exterior face, just belowsaid upper rim.
 2. A warmer according to claim 1, wherein said sleeveportion is formed from a fleece material.